The goal for the Urban Exerciser project is to better understand personal motivations, characteristics and life situations behind active lifestyles as well as the role of built and natural environment in supporting active travel by walking and cycling. The participants of the study are provided personal recommendations based on their unique characteristics and residential area on how they could increase their daily physical activity and the effect of these recommendations will be studied. The project sheds light if individualized rather than general recommendations can lead to better results in increasing the physical activity and supporting better health at population-level.
Our role in the Urban Exerciser project is to focus on the role of built and natural environment in encouraging or discouraging physical activity. We aim at;
We combine big data from mobile phones and Helsinki bike-sharing system to individual-level data collected from participants. Urban Exerciser brings together a unique set of expertise from four disciplines, geography, psychology, sports medicine and computer science. Together with the multidisciplinary research team, we combine our expertise to understand the complex patterns of physical activity.
The project is funded by cultural foundation of Amer
Project in Finnish: https://www.helsinki.fi/fi/uutiset/terveys/mika-liikuttaa-stadilaisia